Baseball in the new 31-4A is stacked

Thursday

Apr 15, 2010 at 12:01 AM

By Pete Garcia

It took only five innings for the Corpus Christi Moody Trojans to put Miller away Thursday night.

Ten strikeouts for pitcher Chris Navarro and a line-up which collected nine hits, including a grand slam and a home runů just another day at the office for the Trojans. They've been that impressive all season.

And that's the kind of baseball Moody is bringing to the newly revamped District 31-4A next season.

Moody, the perennial king of South Texas high school baseball, was moved to 31-4A during the recent UIL district realignment and reclassification. After everything was said and done, 31-4A has lost Laredo Cigarroa, LBJ and Nixon and gained Moody and Ray.

The move transforms one of the region's top 4A baseball districts into what will easily be the very best.

Moody, which won a Class 5A state title in 2004 and the 4A state crown in 2007, will join a district that already includes powerhouse Calallen.

In the most current Texas High School Baseball Association poll, the Trojans are 4A's second ranked team and Calallen is fourth.

Since joining the 4A ranks in 2007, Moody has beaten Calallen twice in the Region IV finals to advance to the 4A state tournament.

The one year they didn't was in 2008 when they were eliminated by Alice in the area round of the playoffs. Calallen went on to win the state crown that year.

The district will also include Alice and Ray, which have developed into some of the area's most consistent baseball programs.

Alice coach Victor Escamilla said 31-4A was already a salty district with the Wildcats. The addition of the Trojans makes it even tougher.

"Instead of one Goliath, we're going to have two," Escamilla said.

"It's going to be Moody and Calallen, and everybody else is going to be taking turns throwing rocks at them and seeing what happens."

Even longtime Calallen coach Steve Chapman, who guided the Wildcats to a state championship in 2008, said the district is changing dramatically with the addition of Moody and Ray.

"It's going to be a competitive district, without a doubt," Chapman said. "But, I think it's going to only better prepare us for the playoffs. There's no doubt that Moody and Ray have a lot of tradition when it comes to high school baseball. They'll be more competitive than Laredo Nixon."

District 31-4A could be so competitive that even good teams could be excluded from the playoffs.

"I think without a doubt, you're going to have seven good teams in the district," Escamilla said. "You're going to see that because of how good the district is, there's going to be a fifth-place team in 31-4A next season that would probably be a playoff team in any other district in the state."